« I love you, my body, which was his desire,
His field of enjoyment and his garden of ecstasy
Where the taste of his pleasure still lingers
Like a rare perfume in a precious vase.

I love you, my eyes, which remained dazzled
In the wonder he trailed in his wake
And which hold deep within you, as in two wells,
The persistent reflection of his destroyed beauty.

I love you, my arms, which placed around his neck
The supple embrace of languid tenderness.
I love you, my expert fingers, which knew where best to
Lavish the slow touch of caresses.

I love you, my brow, where my thoughts, forever chained to his, boil endlessly
And for having bled beneath his bite, at last,
I love you above all, oh my withered mouth.

I love you, my heart, which beat with great strokes
The exasperated rhythm of lovers fevers,

And my bare feet bound to his and my knees
Riveted to his knees and my skin beneath his lips…

I love you, my flesh, who made for his flesh
A burning tabernacle of perfect voluptuousness
And who took from him the best, the dearest,
Always sated and never satisfied.

And I love you, oh my yearning soul, you who depart
—New Isis—attempting the frantic search
For dissolved atoms, scattered effluvia
Of his being where you yourself thirst to be lost.

I am the empty temple where all worship has ceased
On the useless altar deserted by the idol;

I am the fire that dances at the forsaken hearth,
The blaze that warms nothing, the mad torch…

And this need to love, which no longer has its purpose
In death, now falls back upon myself.

And since, oh My love, you are everything to me.
Absorbed, it is truly you I love if I love myself. (Marie Nizet)